in the garden. Time passes

Anne-Marie Jean

28 February - 22 March 2026, Platform
Members preview: 27 February

Across time, 30 years on from my first solo exhibition at Contemporary Art Space in Manuka, In the garden. Time passes continues a dialogue with the core construction blocks of landscape representation – colour, form, movement, materiality, engaged to explore our physical experiences within our natural ecosystems. In ephemeral collages I stitch together ideas I have about the garden. Are these layers of paper accumulations of undergrowth and underground? Are the painted fragments tacked to the scratched wooden board a map of a garden’s composition from above? Rubbings of tree bark on large sheets of washi paper made in a Japanese cedar forest are folder over and over. They are covered in part by thicker paper on which colourful lines dash and meander, and mono-printed blotches of paint spread densely, all sewn through with fine cotton thread. Instead of creating illusion these materials, colours, marks and compositions map out relationships of matter, movement, living interactions, time and space that I experience in the garden.

The works of this exhibition are largely inspired by an artsACT funded research trip to Japan in 2024, where qualities of Japanese garden design and philosophy opened my practice to new modes of investigation.

Image: Anne-Marie Jean, 5 days of leaves falling, 2026, washi paper, paper, watercolour, pencil, thread. 71 x 49.5cm. Photograph by Brenton McGeachie